


Rewritten

by aroceu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 15:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroceu/pseuds/aroceu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco comes to Grimmauld Place for closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewritten

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally supposed to be Regulus/Draco but I guess in the process of writing it I got really attached to Draco lmao. So it's more gen than anything!

Draco has little memories of this house—visiting and scavenging with Aunt Bella, accompanying his mother sometimes when she had come to clean the house up, in later years. He can't imagine why she'd bothered, though; it's as filthy now as it used to be. At least, so say his memories.

It's Potter's now?  _Yeah, right_ , Draco says to himself in his head, because Potter isn't even related to the Blacks. Draco is well-aware, though, that one of his cousins had been called Sirius,  _the_  Sirius Black, who incidentally happened to be Potter's godfather.

Draco snorts at the irony. He hates every connection he has with Potter.

He'd like to hate Potter more than he does now, but Potter's saved his hide at least twice during the war, and Draco remembers large flames, licking at his skin, feeling practically burned to death—Draco shudders, and sees black for a moment. Only a moment, though.

The kitchen isn't as dingy as it used to be, Draco recalls—he sees in his memory, for a moment, a little four-year old version of himself with tiny tufts of blond hair at the top of his head running around, chasing a house elf. It's strange, because shouldn't Draco recall memories from his own perspective, instead of peripherally?

He hates being human sometimes, hates falling asleep too. Hates the sound of screaming and shouting and his own voice—" _Crucio!_ "—blood and bodies twisted on the floor, his wand shaking in his hand, the Dark Lord—

 _No, no. Voldemort._  Draco still can't bear himself to even think the name. The pale white face flashes in his mind and he nearly blacks out yet again.

He walks through the kitchen and to the sitting room—and to his surprise, there's a hunched over house elf humming and cleaning the furniture. Draco freezes and the house elf seems to sense him and turns to him—and they stare at each other for a good minute or so.

Then the house elf demands: "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"I—" says Draco, holding his hands up. "I was just—"

"No one's supposed to be able to enter," snaps the house elf.

"I'm—my mother was a Black," says Draco. He clears his throat. "Narcissa, um. Narcissa Black."

"Ah, yes. Narcissa." The house elf narrows his eyes at him. "And you are Draco?"

"Yes," says Draco, and the house elf looks relatively less antagonized.

"While Kreacher welcomes Master Draco," he says, "this house does not belong to Kreacher or Master Draco at all. It belongs to Master Harry Potter, who—"

"Saved the Wizarding World and all that. Yeah, yeah, I know," says Draco. "I'm not—trying to break in or something. I just."

He stops. He doesn't want to tell the house elf—Kreacher—anything, for fear that Kreacher might pass it on to Potter of course—but Draco doesn't even know what he's doing here himself. He'd felt a sort of  _pull_  here, to Grimmauld Place, ever since sixth year; he'd tried Apparating here once, but that'd been when he hardly knew how Apparating worked. Still, he feels like he's closer to something now, and he gazes around, trying to find where that  _pull_  is coming from.

"I am sure Master Harry will not mind if Kreacher shows Master Draco around," says Kreacher finally, taking Draco's silence as a proof of innocence. Draco scoffs; if "Master Harry" knew that he was at Grimmauld Place, he'd probably have him booted out immediately.

"After all, the House of Black  _is_  the house of your ancestors." Kreacher leads Draco upstairs, to a little room on the left. "This is where Master Harry sleeps when he stays," he says, and Draco peeks in. He's surprised: the room is covered with still-posters of probably Muggle women in bathing suits, and funny-looking Muggle vehicles. The drapes and rugs are all gold and scarlet,  _of course_.

"Did he—" Draco starts, but Kreacher says, "This room used to belong to Master Sirius." He says Sirius's name as if he has a roach in his mouth.

 _Oh_ , Draco thinks, and Kreacher leads him along. "This was Kreacher's late Mistress's room," he says.

"The woman in the portrait downstairs?" She'd looked familiar, and had smiled when she saw him.

"Yes," says Kreacher, looking pleased. "And this—" he gestures to a room on their right "—is the Black Family Tree."

Draco nudges the door open. The walls are covered with branches and leaves, tiny scribbles upon each: a leaf at the bottom middle draws his attention immediately. He goes over to it, and sees a picture of himself—a surprisingly updated one—with the words  _Draco Malfoy_  scrawled in golden print underneath. Above it are  _Lucius Malfoy_  and  _Narcissa Malfoy_ —his father's portrait looking less pale than he currently does now. His mother is connected with  _Bellatrix Lestrange_  and a burnt, blacked out leaf—probably his other aunt, Andromeda. She'd married a Muggle.

Draco's eyes go up and up until he's generations above himself, and then goes back down. His eyes catch  _Potter_ , and then that trails down, until it's  _James Potter_ , and then a single leaf under him:  _Harry Potter._

"I'm related to Potter?" Draco says, wanting to throw up in that instant.

Kreacher leans in close with Draco. "Not a Black, obviously," he says, which doesn't make Draco feel any better.

He suddenly feels that  _pull_  again—another leaf catches his attention, somewhere near his mother's. The face on the leaf is proud, black hair framing a narrow face. He's in the same line with another burnt out leaf next to him, and the same generation as Draco.

"Ah, Master Regulus." Kreacher sounds as if he's about to cry.

Draco examines the words beneath the frame. Indeed, it reads  _Regulus Black._  "Who's he?" he asks Kreacher.

Kreacher sniffs. "Only the most—Kreacher will show you his room, Master Draco." He leads Draco out and as they make their way down the hall, Kreacher says, "Master Regulus was the greatest master a house elf could ever ask for."

"What happened to him?" Draco asks curiously.

Kreacher shudders. "The most horrible—" His eyes suddenly water up, which remind Draco faintly of his family's old house elf, and he says, "Um—"

"Helped Master Potter, of course. Helped defeated the Dark Lord," says Kreacher. "Master Regulus—he was so smart, so brave, so—"

"Wait," says Draco. "He died in the war? But how come he never—"

"Oh, no," says Kreacher, and then he stops in the hall and sobs. "A-A long time ago," he says to Draco, and blows his nose on his pillowcase-robe, and Draco doesn't know what to do.

"How… How did he help Potter then?" he asks, with a loss of anything else to say.

"The—Kreacher tried, Kreacher tried!"

Kreacher starts banging his head against the wall, through his snot and his tears, and Draco deems Kreacher as a lost cause. He puts his hand on one of Kreacher's grimy shoulders—wishes he hadn't, now—and says, "Just show me Regulus's bedroom, please."

Kreacher looks at him and sniffs and Draco hesitantly pulls his hand away. When Kreacher turns back around to continue down the hall, he wipes his hand on his sleeve. He wonders if house elves have heard of bathing before.

Kreacher leads him to nearly the very last bedroom. On the door, a little sign reads:

_Do Not Enter_

_Without the Express Permission of_

_Regulus Arcturus Black_

"This is his room then?" he says to Kreacher, who nods. Draco pushes open the door.

It doesn't have the same pull that the leaf of Regulus had had, nor like the one he'd been getting for the past couple of years. Still, there's something about Regulus's room—Draco walks around, admiring the green and silver drapes, the familiar Black family crest:  _Toujours Pur._  Then he sees newspaper clippings about the Dark Lord, and—Draco shudders. Had Regulus been a Death Eater? But then surely his father would've known, would've mentioned something to his mother about one of her relatives being with them.

He turns to Kreacher, who's staring longingly at a picture on the wall; Draco joins him. The picture is of a Quidditch team, and Draco recognizes Regulus immediately. He looks like a less-annoying version of Potter: black hair, too bony for his own good, Seeker. But Slytherin in his own right and Draco feels a little bit of respect swell him in his chest for Regulus Black.

"Master was so handsome," Kreacher murmurs, as Draco turns towards the door.

 _Nothing_ , he thinks, all for but a millisecond—and then there it is again, the  _pull_ , stronger than ever. Across the hall is a closed door; Draco asks Kreacher, "What's that room?"

"Oh," says Kreacher, and tears his gaze away from the Slytherin Quidditch team. "Black portrait room. Pictures of dead House of Black members." He turns to the Quidditch picture again, until he's realized what he's just said.

Draco's already halfway to the door and opens it; hundreds of faces are staring at him. All with dark hair and dark features, and Draco feels put on the spot—what is he doing here?

Then the portrait of one—yet again—catches his eye and Draco moves toward it. The other Black family members are muttering amongst themselves, and Kreacher, who's followed Draco into the room, is beaming, bowing at every face he sees.

The portrait that Draco comes to is the same as that Slytherin Seeker, although perhaps a bit older, and gives Draco something that could be characterized as a smile when Draco approaches him. "Hello," he says, his voice familiar and smooth.

Draco swallows. "Um."

Regulus's hair is as long as it'd been on his leaf. He looks at all the other portraits, with eyes that are now focused on them, and Regulus says, "You know that I've been waiting."

"Where do you want us to go, Reg?" says Sirius, in the portrait next to him. He's significantly more handsome than his brother, but it's obvious that they're siblings.

Sirius grins at Draco, which comes at a surprise. "Hi, Draco. How's Harry?"

"How would I know?" says Draco.

Sirius sighs and turns to his brother again. "He's as rude as you were," he says. "No wonder you want to see him."

"Shut up," says Regulus, although with no malice. "You lot," he refers to the rest of the portraits again, "can go to the family portrait in the sitting room. I'm sure you'd all want to."

"Master Regulus?" Kreacher comes to Regulus's portrait, with tears in his eyes.

Regulus smiles again. "It's good to see you, Kreacher," he says. "I knew I could count on you."

"But—Master Regulus, Kreacher failed,  _Kreacher failed_ —"

"No, Kreacher did not," says Regulus, and Kreacher stares at him for a moment, and then trembles. Draco feels as though Kreacher looks a little lighter, a little less weighed down.

"You go into the sitting room too," he says to Kreacher, as the other portraits are grumbling ("Why do we have to listen to him? We died  _before_  him." "Just because he'd wanted to see this Malfoy boy—") but abiding to his request. "Talk to the others there. You can talk to me any time later."

"Yes, Master!" Kreacher says eagerly, and then he bounds out of the room.

"Do I have to leave too?" Sirius asks his brother. "I want to stay here, get some information on Draco Malfoy to pass onto Harry—"

"Harry Potter doesn't even know this room exists," Regulus says to him. "And you will do no such thing."

"You're no fun when you're dead," says Sirius, and makes to turn, as Regulus says to his shoulder, "Being dead isn't supposed to be  _fun_."

Then he and Draco are alone in the room—well, with no other faces staring at them, and Draco says, "What was that all about?"

"Draco," says Regulus, and then suddenly he looks older, more tired. Like something has crumbled from his face.

Draco thinks of how horrible memories and dreams had hit him earlier, and wonders if the same thing is happening to Regulus right now.

"You haven't lived a very easy life, have you?" Regulus says softly, and Draco shrugs.

"Well yeah, if you include the past three years, it could've been bloody easier," he says.

"It's not—" Regulus breaks off and sighs, staring absently to something at the right of his frame. Perhaps the frame itself, Draco thinks.

"When you think something is right," he says to Draco, "and it's not. And when you think good is bad, and bad is good."

"Nothing's ever  _good_  anymore," says Draco. "I'm not good. This world isn't good. This fucking—" he gestures around "—this  _house_  isn't good."

He thinks of  _Toujours Pur_  and his crazy Aunt Bellatrix, and Regulus seems to know what he's thinking.

"Being brought up thinking you were better than anyone else," he says, "because of your blood. And doing everything for all the wrong reasons. And thinking it was the good thing to do."

"You think that it's bad that I tried to save my family?" says Draco angrily. "You think—You think that I should've let him kill my mum?"

"One life for another," says Regulus, and Draco is silent.

Regulus sighs. "I thought Lord Voldemort was right," he says, ignoring Draco's horrible wince. "I thought—a world without Muggles, it would be—"

"Better," says Draco.

Regulus nods, imperceptibly. "That so-called 'normalcy' was inferior to magic. Because of my parents, and their parents, and  _their_  parents—And even when you surround yourself with those who come from such backgrounds, you just—" Regulus shakes his head.

"Sirius," he says, "my brother, sometimes I—" He glances to Sirius's portrait for a moment. "Sometimes I wish I could be like him," Regulus says humbly. "He was always so—Have you seen his bedroom?"

"Yes," says Draco, and scoffs. "It's disgusting."

"It is," Regulus agrees. "But he—he never bought into what my parents said. And—"

"What does that have to do with me?" says Draco.

"Because," says Regulus. "You and I, we're the same. And I don't want you to end up like," he gestures to himself in the painting.

"But there's nothing to worry about anymore," says Draco. "The Dark Lord's been defeated. Potter offed him. And all that."

"There's still a ways to go for you," says Regulus. "You can't tell me that makes you feel any better. That you can just forget everything so easily."

Draco is silent again.

"When I was alive," says Regulus, and he chuckles sardonically. "Everything my parents wanted me to be, I was, while stupid, popular Sirius—he ran away with his best friend, did what  _he_ wanted to do. I thought I was the better son."

"You were," says Draco.

"The better son—but the better man? Is it any more important to listen to your parents than—"

Regulus cuts himself off. He glances down, as if he were looking at his feet. Draco notices now that Regulus doesn't seem to have the grandeur that his room had implied, with the vibrant greens and silvers and stark polish of his bedroom. In the painting, Regulus is wearing muted greys against a dull brown background. Draco wonders what it means.

"You have to bring yourself out of this," he tells Draco. "Find something—better."

"What, like try to forget what happened?" Draco shakes his head. "I can't do that. Do you know what I had to do, what  _he_  made me do? What I—" He stops again, thinks of the Astronomy Tower. Dumbledore's weak eyes, weak voice. All the Death Eaters he'd—and Draco hadn't even sworn loyalty, just tried to save his own skin. His and his family's.

"Draco, trust me. I've been there once," says Regulus. "Before—Before  _everything_ , my life revolved around the Dark Lord, around the Dark Lord and my family and purebloods. I didn't know what I was doing. I was stupid."

"Yeah, well I'm not," Draco can't help saying.

The corner of Regulus's mouth curves. "Yes," he says, "because you weren't infatuated with a power hungry and hypocritical man. You'd seen what he'd done to your loved ones before I did."

"What did he—" Draco frowns. "But weren't the Blacks in support of You-Know-Who?"

Regulus looks towards the door behind him. "Not them," he says, his voice sounding far away. "Kreacher. I hadn't even known at the time, but. He was my friend. Perhaps my only one."

Draco is puzzled; he hasn't heard of anyone befriending a house elf before, not to mention a house elf's master. But then, he remembers that Potter had gotten to know Draco's old house elf, and by way of how Kreacher speaks of Potter, he may have even befriended Kreacher, as well.

Something that is not jealousy burns inside Draco. He doesn't even— _But Potter didn't try_ —Draco shakes the thoughts out of his head.

"He mentioned something like that earlier," he says to Regulus. "Kreacher. About—he said he tried?"

"I shouldn't have given him such a direct order," Regulus sighs, looking regretful. "It was—the Dark Lord is the most awful being, you know. Making a house elf—Do you know what Horcruxes are?"

"I think," says Draco, remembering the brief explanation of how the Dark Lord was destroyed in the paper (in an interview with Potter, of course.) "I think so."

"The Dark Lord was mad," Regulus says. "Horribly, horribly mad—He'd made one, and then put it in this basin, and filled the basin with this poison that—" He shakes his head. "It's how I died, but I am no house elf."

"What does that have to do with Kreacher?"

"He made Kreacher drink the poison," says Regulus. "And the thing about the poison isn't just that it  _hurts_ —it burns you from inside out, makes you remember your worst memories and nightmares a thousand times worse—like a hundred dementors, slowly sucking the soul out of you."

"You drank it?" says Draco.

"I had to," says Regulus. "I had no other choice. I wouldn't have made Kreacher drink it again—and it was up to him to get the Horcrux destroyed."

"But Potter did it, in the end."

"With Kreacher's help of course," says Regulus, and he smiles.

Draco stares at him for a moment. "I don't get it," he says, finally. "You say that you don't want me to become like you, but—"

"Because my entire life was about creating my own terrible mistakes, and spending the rest of my short life fixing them!" says Regulus. "And I know I'm nothing but a portrait to you, Draco, but… We both did the wrong things for the wrong reasons. And we knew, all along."

"Are you saying you don't want me to get killed any time soon?" Draco says dryly.

"That," says Regulus patiently, "and that I know it won't be easy, with all the memories from the war. Now that I'm dead," he chuckles, "I don't have anything to worry about. And even though you're not dead, I don't want you to have anything to worry about either.

"We're the same, Draco. We both had a choice, and then we didn't. We could've—A lot could've changed if we'd stopped from the start," says Regulus, and his smile looks sad now as he watches Draco. "We're both so young," he says. "But we've both redeemed ourselves."

"I haven't," says Draco, frowning.

Regulus smiles, and Draco thinks he knows a little more than an average portrait should. "I wouldn't be too sure about that," he says, but explains no further.

"I think," says Regulus, "that one day, we will meet, behind the veil. And through you, I can feel that I've lived a long and happy life, because I know you will. It's more than just that we're both Blacks," and his eyes gleam a bit, like he's proud regardless, "but that you've given me a second chance. Life will go well for you."

"How do you know?" Draco asks.

Regulus cracks a smirk this time, something that seems familiar. "I have a feeling," he says, and that is that.

He calls the other portraits back and Sirius says something like, "I thought I heard you wished you could be like him," and Regulus says, "Pah, rubbish," and Kreacher comes running in and hugs Regulus's portrait and weeps and says, "Master, Master Regulus!" Draco watches and feels a wave of—perhaps something like family, not just of his father and mother, but—the Blacks don't look so intimidating now, gazing at him as if they understand him. They are _Toujours Pur_ ; they are also a part of Draco, before his story.

"I think I've overstayed my welcome," he says, when he and Kreacher walk out (Kreacher had been reluctant to leave, but Regulus had actually ordered him to go. Draco's glad: he doesn't think Kreacher would ever leave that room again if he could.)

"You may have, Master Draco," says Kreacher, and he's chuckling. As they walk toward the front door, Kreacher asks, "Will Master Draco visit some time?"

"Uh," says Draco, because he's thinking of Potter again because this is still Potter's house, not his.

And before he can open the front door, it opens instead.

"Kreacher!" says Potter's voice. "I forgot that I left something in Sirius's room, could you check if it's—"

He opens the door full way and stops when he sees Draco.

Draco feels paralyzed in the middle of the hall.

"Malfoy," says Potter, looking confused and—a little bit suspicious, though Draco doesn't blame him. "What are you doing here?"

Draco quickly pulls himself back together. "Getting in touch with my family roots," he says, and bites back an insult that may or may not have something to do with Potter's own dead parents.

"Right. Oh, yeah, you're a Black," says Potter, and Draco says, "Quick on the uptake, Potter."

"Er," says Potter, and then, "Oh, right, I have something to give you."

"Something to give me?" Draco blinks, stunned.

"Yeah, well—something to return to you, actually," says Potter, digging around in his bag.

He pulls out Draco's wand.

"Here," he says, and Draco takes it.

"Um," he says, staring at the wand. Then back at Potter, who's looking at him expectantly—most likely for a reaction, if Draco will throw him an insult, or—

"Thank you, Potter."

He looks Potter in the eye. There's no hate—still the suspicion, but—nothing else but neutrality. Draco wonders how much the war has changed Potter. If it has changed him as much it has changed Draco. Or more.

"Bye, Malfoy," he says, as Draco moves toward the doorway, and as Draco leaves, the door shuts behind him. Draco is still staring at his wand. It has an odd sense of fulfillment, unknown power— _used for good._

His grip tightens around it. He feels positively lighter.


End file.
